On the farm, there are many hills and valleys. If the hills are large and long enough, they form wet weather ditches at the bottom of them. The ditch shown above is about 12' wide and 6' deep and needed to be fenced to keep my dogs in. I watched how others fenced ditches and creeks in the area and it usually consists of a cattle panel jammed into the creek or ditch which gets clogged with junk and blocks the creek causing the bank to erode. Eventually the panel gets washed away leaving a gaping hole in your fence.

Since the fence already had to go over the top of the ditch, and the fence is electrified, I thought the ditch could be blocked by hanging some light metal chain from the lowest wire to a few inches above the ground. The chain had 6000volts on it and it looked like it would work until Dude, the fence testing dog, walked back and forth through it without getting shocked. I also began to worry that an animal could become tangled in it and die a terrible death. I added more chains and it worked better but I was not satisfied.

I then came up with the idea of hanging light duty Red Brand welded wire sections to the lower wire. The roll was 4' wide and 100' long so I cut sections out of it, cut it to fit the contour of the ditch, and hung it from the lower fence wire which made it electrified to 6-7000 volts. Dude the fence testing dog didn't even try to get through it. Any animal coming up to this will have to put their nose on it to push it up and walk under it. Before the spring floods come, I will attach some sections of foam pipe insulation to the bottom of it so in a flood situation, the sections can float up on an angle with the current instead of hanging in the water, getting clogged with debris, and pulling the fence down.